"Ha, ha! He, he!" giggled the innkeeper. "I beg pardon, gentlemen, but I can't help laughing when I think of it. It was a hot day, you must know, and the poor old man got drowsy while the sermon was going on—went off to sleep, in fact; and so, no doubt, he would have slept on all the while the parson's voice was going on overhead. But presently there was a sort of stop when the sermon was ended, and this roused the old fellow, who jumped up, forgetting where he was, but fancying he had got something to do in his regular everyday calling, and bawled out at the top of his voice, 'Oh yes! Oh yes!' I reckon he won't be parish clerk again in a hurry."
"And you think this old sexton can help us out, Mr. Bartrum?" said Foster, when the needful tribute of attention had been paid to his anecdote.
"I shouldn't wonder, for he knows about everything and everybody in Saddlebrook; and if he can't tell, I don't know who can."
"And about Elizabeth Foold?"
Here again was a blank. There was no such person, to his knowledge, in Saddlebrook now, whatever might have been. But then, she being a very humble person (only a nurse, it seemed), Mr. Bartrum could not be expected to know much about it. Old Freeman would be the man, however, to know. Or perhaps the marriage-book or the burial-book in the church vestry might give some information.
And here, for that night, the subject was dismissed.
The old sexton was easily found on the following morning. He was superintending the digging of a grave in the churchyard, his infirmities of age having rendered it necessary to employ a subordinate. He was ready enough, also, to furnish information, so far as his own knowledge extended. But even he, though a very almanack in the past history of Saddlebrook, could not tell all that the young lawyer and his client would have liked to know.
He told them this, however. He remembered the doctor whose name appeared on the document. He remembered him very well; and ah! Wasn't he a clever doctor? But he hadn't been able to cure himself—whatever he did for others—of a great swelling that came out of his neck like, just above his collar-bone. People called it "a new schism," or something of that sort. He didn't understand fine names, the old sexton didn't; but he had always looked upon schism as being another name for yeast, and clearly that wasn't what was the matter with the doctor.
"Perhaps it was aneurysm," suggested John Tincroft.
"Like enough, sir; and anyhow, the swelling got bigger, till at last the poor doctor died of a sudden, as he always said he should. There's his tombstone, gentlemen, if you have any curiosity that way," continued the sexton, pointing to one some little distance across the churchyard.